This is basically what happened with abortion. The supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade and the Republican argument was that it was just a "State's rights" issue but then introduced a federal bill to protect the "preborn"[0] recently. It's fine until states do what they don't like.
> • Include “pronoun:” under “name:” in name tags and introductions in groups as an opportunity for participants to make their pronouns visible. At the beginning of the semester, educators can call out students by their last name instead of their first name in case a student has not been able to change their name in the Student Information System or legally. Let students know that after class they can let you know what name they use if it is different than what is on the roster.
> • At the beginning of the semester, educators can pass out 3x5 notecards to students and ask them to add their name, pronouns, and whatever information you feel is necessary to know about the student that they might not want to share out loud.
> • Have pronouns be added to all email signatures, and link the word “pronouns” to this guide or another reference for people who are new to this practice:
‒ Sincerely, Mx. Marvel Pronouns: They, Them, Theirs
Granted, part of the document talks about not having to share your pronouns, but we don't know what kind of internal policies they had that employees either needed to follow or at least felt pressure to follow.
It isn't really 'personal liberty' being removed in this case. This is a bureaucracy that is enforcing external appearance standard. I'm sure these folks will be free (!) to express themselves however they like in their personal lives.
I'm not talking about the 1st amendment. I'm talking about the rhetoric of those on the right in America. They are constantly congratulating themselves on being the champions of freedom. But if someone wants to read a book they don't like, or if someone wants to use a pronoun they disagree with, or if someone wants access to certain medical procedures then they pass laws to restrict those freedoms. It's incredibly hypocritical.
Private companies != federal government. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny, there's no way the federal government will be able to argue that it has a legitimate interest in banning pronouns in signatures.
"Personal liberty" is a superset of what's protected by the First Amendment. No one said anything about 1A. It's clear that MAGA is not actually interested in either 1A protection specifically (totally aside from this case specifically) nor personal liberties generally (as exemplified by this case).
Huh? It's fairly common in larger enterprises, everyone I've been working at gave you a template where to fill in the name and then save it in your outlook. To be used with all correspondence, especially external.
Logo, text with address and the usual boring email disclaimer that is half the body that no one reads...
Why "Huh?"? It's about as surprising that many companies don't have explicit email signature policies as it is that some companies do. That is: Not very.
internal memos obtained by ABC News that cited two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office seeking to curb diversity and equity programs in the federal government
Those made nearly everyone uncomfortable in my experience and were the height of performative advocacy policy. But my experience comes from my time at a company that had a (soft) requirement to add those to our signature. I just don’t think a company needs to give much guidance at all on what goes in an email signature. I’m totally okay with anyone that includes pronouns on their own volition.
> Those made nearly everyone uncomfortable in my experience and were the height of performative advocacy policy.
I won’t do it, but don’t care if others do in email signatures. I find it odd when it’s done in a meeting but I still won’t offer them up even if others are. I have been asked for mine a couple of times (and this irritates me…if you want me to respect that your pronouns are important to you, respect that “my” pronouns are unimportant to me). I respond with something akin to “your best guess will be fine with me”.
> respect that “my” pronouns are unimportant to me
I can respect this if and only if it's actually true. If your going to be offended if someone uses a pronoun for the wrong gender, or uses "they" then I don't respect the performance, and in my experience most people who are resistant to giving their pronouns would indeed be offended by either of those.
If you actually don't care, great, no problem. If you do I can't respect being unwilling to put in the miniscule effort to state your preference instead of being offended when someone doesn't default to it.
> If you do I can't respect being unwilling to put in the miniscule effort to state your preference instead of being offended when someone doesn't default to it
Before about 3ish years ago such a thing was never expected of me and I can’t think of a time prior or since where someone didn’t manage to correctly figure it from apparent social cues of their exposure to from me. Why all of a sudden should something that was a non-issue for decades would society now require me to spend a “miniscule of effort” or frankly any effort whatsoever to state something that should be completely obvious to you and has been by literally everyone who managed to encounter to me prior to now.
In other words, you do care, and your whole "it's unimportant to me" and "your best guess is fine" isn't actually true. Instead, if you've chosen to play guessing games with someone who has made clear their intent to respect your preference, all the while pretending they're the ones who are being unreasonable.
No, I am not playing the guessing game, they are. I am choosing to not play a game that didn’t exist 3 years ago because it’s unnecessary. This is literally a first world, English language only language fad. Y’all want to play it, have fun, I won’t get in your way. However let’s not pretend that you are somehow virtuous because you’re playing the game…but I am not because I am watching it amused on the sideline.
You just claimed your pronouns are unimportant, and because of that your non-answer to an honest question should be respected, then turned around and said you would indeed be offended if someone used the wrong one. Sure sounds like playing games to me.
Welcome to a world in which we realize some people don't use the pronouns you might think they do and therefore, out of respect for everyone, we ask what pronouns people use. Why is that so hard to wrap your head around?
Sorry, I don’t believe that this is the real reason, but I realize it’s the reason that is often given as justification. If it was really “out of respect for everyone” you wouldn’t make a big deal out of it when people don’t offer them up. You could just do what people did prior to 3 years ago (and frankly even now among us folks that don’t put emphasis on pronouns) and just let social cues lead you.
If someone isn’t offering up their pronouns to you in 2025, my guess is they aren’t going to get butthurt if someone accidentally uses the wrong one in conversation.
Yes, for most people it was performative, but seriously, if being asked to call somebody by the gender they prefer makes you uncomfortable that's a you problem, not a them problem.
These signatures have morphed into signaling one’s political leaning. It’s a good idea to keep such signals (whether intended or not) out of official communications.
For example, the Swastika was/is a religious symbol to billions of people. But became a political symbol and is a trigger point today
As someone who works with a lot of international people with names I’m not familiar with, it can be really helpful to have pronouns. At a minimum. But also I like freedom. Call people what they want to be called.
2 milion federal employees, lets say half of them has email and each of them spends 1 minute on this.
It costs then 1 milion man-minutes, thats 694 man-days or almost 2 man-years.
So this will cost at least 60k dolars, presuming 30k a year is a minimum salary. It isn't.
Money well spent ! Lets start THE cost cutting :)
Oh, I forgot this is gov, so it will costs at least 10 times more then what I'm counting. And I was very optimistic, employee forced to do unnecessary things will easily spend half a day on this.
This is actually dumb. I go by he/him pronouns and I put them in my signature, because my first name is gender-neutral. I find it annoying when people assume I'm female over email correspondence. Not considering people with different genders or who have a desire to use different pronouns, I'm sure there are other people like me in the federal government. What's next? They'll tell people they need to change their name to match their assigned birth gender?
A chunk of the federal employee base will have something like "LTC" or "Dr." in front of their name, which again confers no indication of gender or preferred pronoun.
I don’t understand why you’re going through all these weird lengths to solve a problem that pronouns more optimally solve and cover more use cases (e.g. nonbinary people).
interesting. this might be able to be exploited by those who wish to convey their pronouns without breaking this new pronouncement, at least for those who have chosen one of the traditional binaries.
Yeah, I mean, it's not going be a one size fits all solution here though. Some people get really finicky with titles. And with about 2.3 million employees, simple rules aren't going to work, there's too may execptions.
Just with the simple trans stuff, estimates are about 0.5% of people fit that description. So about 11,500 employees. Not all of them are fully out, so you're looking at a lot of people that don't fit that bill.
Some people really do not want to be a Mr. or a Ms./Mrs. I think it goes back to bad childhoods.
Some people really do not think that they are a Mr./Mrs. anymore, that they are Dr. or Col. or Rev. now and just reject the Mr./Mz. out of hand.
I have older people in my life that are super particular about the Mrs. thing and just use Mz. and always have.
Also, you still have a lot of women, especially older and in the south, that will take their husband's name as their formal title (Mrs. Dr. John Q. Doe). And those that I've met that do this are very particular about it.
Again, there's a lot of people here and I think leaving it up to the particular person on the other end of the conversation is the only workable method. It's a 2-way street afterall and you have to respect that other human on the other end.
In the very least, you've gotten a lot of info about them and their personality that you can then use to your advantage.
This is what my colleagues in Vietnam have been doing for decades (well, the two decades I've been doing business there).
Vietnamese names are gendered but Westerners have no idea which genders go with which names. (Is Duy male or female? How about Duyen?) So, at least in my experience, they've always just put Mr/Ms in their email so people know which it is.
Not my opinion but the rationale behind this, as argued, is that removing pronouns will cause less divisiveness because fewer people care about pronouns than politics.
And does it reduce divisiveness by forcing this to happen in a few hours across the federal workforce of a couple million people?
If this was a serious rationale, the agencies would have some time to make a plan and implement it (say 30 days). This is exactly to sow division and chaos, to find out who the enemies of this administration are, and who will comply without complaining to ridiculous wasteful demands.
DEI is just their latest obsession, since the old ones don't poll as well anymore (gay marriage, woke, CRT, SJW, ..). I don't think there is a bigger rationale behind this than 'we need a wedge issue to rile up the masses'.
It seems like an obvious opinion. Not that it's obviously true, but that the evidence for it is obvious - as in, it shouldn't be a confusing or surprising opinion for somebody to have. You may perfectly reasonably disagree with it, but that's not the same as asking somebody to summarize the story so far under the pretense that you don't know what they're talking about.
You asked a very subjective, opinion-based question, and called the answer offered "objectively horrible" and "speculative". That doesn't seem to make sense, besides being unnecessarily antagonistic.
Re: Downvotes - You said, "I asked a perfectly reasonable question and was downvoted", then went on to say something about downvoters having their blinders on. That's sarcastic complaining. In general, commenting on your own downvotes like that looks bad (underdog syndrome), is distracting, and also self-fulfilling (complaining about downvotes is something that invites downvotes).
Why expend all the effort to prevent people from expressing themselves?
Because being mean is a feature, not a bug, of this administration. This has everything to do with "othering" anybody who doesn't conform to the Republican notion of a normal person (ie, passes for white, heterosexual, and male; with exceptions for attractive women and Uncle Toms).
Because Americans voted to power the most narcissistic person imaginable – again
— who now has a personal vendetta against everything left-leaning because he was "robbed" an election
— for whom everything is now about using his power to punish and retaliate against his perceived enemies as well as securing for himself some sort of a "great man" legacy
— who, having learned from the last time when there were some adults in the White House, has now been careful to surround himself by spineless yes men
— who is nevertheless easy to manipulate by politically savvy people who know how to pander to his massive, yet incredibly fragile, ego.
I don't think I understand "pronouns" if what you say is true. "Pronouns" are not about expressing yourself, but how other people express about yourself. As federal employees, it's probably unconstitutional for them to censor or suppress other people's expressions (certainly to do that without a court order).
But maybe I've just never understood what people mean about "pronouns".
That's like saying, "you can't tell me what your name is, or whether you'd like to be called Mr., Ms. or Mrs. That's not self expression, that's controlling my speech, and so that's censorship."
The same logic is employed in both cases. The difference is that telling someone your name has no political charge to it.
You can dislike the practice of listing your pronouns, but it's perfectly ordinary to tell people how you'd like them to refer to you.
And to be explicit: if someone wants to call you by a different name or pronoun, they're absolutely within their First Amendment rights to do so, ergo someone just listing their preferred pronouns doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights.
>they're absolutely within their First Amendment rights to do so,
Unless someone can rile up a mob into trying to embarass a large corporation or a small business into canceling you. You have a right to free speech, but you don't have a right to be sane when there's a low-intensity riot of unhinged individuals threatening you with destitution and terror.
It's not clear that this is a protected first amendment right. You're not allowed to commit fraud just because the mode of fraud is one of communication. The words you speak may be protected, but not the outcome (fraud). Why would harassing people and ruining their lives be any more protected?
>Sounds snowflakey
Sure, if that helps with your butthurt. Call me names. You think people haven't been doing that my whole life? It's been 30 or 40 years since that hurt my feelings.
> It's not clear that this is a protected first amendment right
Yes it is, actually
This is how the marketplace of ideas actually works. You have bad ideas and say stupid shit, people stop listening to you, associating with you, doing business with you, enjoying your company, inviting you over, and so on. They'll sometimes even call you mean names!
Feel free to provide evidence that harassment is occuring, it sounds like people are stating how they'd like to be treated (clearly free speech), other people are disregarding it (again, free speech), and they're being told that's rude (still free speech). None of that is harassment.
If someone sets expectations or boundaries at work, and you disregard them, sure, you could be fired. Working at a particular place is a privilege, not a right. Professionalism necessitates going along to get along with people who may be from different cultures or subcultures, who may have different expectations of how they should be treated, different political views or values, who you may find annoying or frustrating. That's life.
> Sure, if that helps with your butthurt.
I think you should take a step back and reflect on this remark. You are the one who came to this conversation with complaints.
>That's like saying, "you can't tell me what your name is,
No, it's the opposite of that. Third-person pronouns are the ones people use to discuss third persons among themselves. The person who "wants their pronouns used" isn't party to the conversation. They're attempting to put their own non-name words into other people's mouths. One might make a case that you could choose your own second-person pronouns, but at least in the English language that's egalitarian, everyone's just a "you".
>or whether you'd like to be called Mr., Ms. or Mrs.
I call men "mister" out of respect. My other word for people who don't merit respect is "asshole". If you don't like the first, I'll use the second one. I don't even use "sir" if I can help it... no English lords in this country.
>You can dislike the practice of listing your pronouns,
I can do more than that now. I think I can ignore it without getting fired.
>but it's perfectly ordinary to tell people how you'd like them to refer to you.
It's not ordinary. At no point in human history, in any human language I am aware of, has anyone ever gotten to choose their own third-person pronouns. It's absurd and bizarre. I'm not required to acknowledge the existence of imaginary friends to anyone over the age of 7, I'm not required to play into other people's schizophrenic hallucinations, and I don't have to try to overcome my 50 years of habit in how English is spoken.
> No, it's the opposite of that. Third-person pronouns are the ones people use to discuss third persons among themselves. The person who "wants their pronouns used" isn't party to the conversation.
That's also how names work, though. As in, "Are you coming to Billy's barbeque?" when Billy is not in the conversation.
> At no point in human history, in any human language I am aware of, has anyone ever gotten to choose their own third-person pronouns. It's absurd and bizarre.
What's the realistic difference between pronouns and nicknames? Like a "Richard" going by a "Rich", or "Rick"? That's their decision, right? Or someone choosing to go by their middle name rather than their first name?
When I say I use they/them pronouns, I am telling you I am non-binary and am not a man or a woman. If you go around saying he or she, you're telling me you don't care enough to treat me respectfully. Just the same as if I said my name is X and you called me a diminutive form of X that I don't use. I'm not talking about accidental references here. I'm talking about whatever principled stand you think you're taking. So, it's not about forcing you to do anything. It's asking you to be a decent human who acknowledges another human as they are, rather than as you think they should be.
> I call men "mister" out of respect. My other word for people who don't merit respect is "asshole".
I believe this to be the actual root of the issue. You have decided some people aren't worthy of your respect (I presume because you feel they are your adversaries in a political struggle). Anything they ask of you from that point, you take issue with and blow out of proportion. They aren't people to you, they're "assholes."
You don't have to like people to respect them. You don't have to agree with them either.
> I don't have to try to overcome my 50 years of habit in how English is spoken.
Language changes. Culture changes. They don't change because people are "schizophrenic," they change because they're part of an ongoing conversation.
You don't have to like it. You don't have to change. But if you choose to resist it, you'll come off as out of touch and you'll upset or offend people. And consequently they may not want to work with you or spend time with you. You've every right to do that. But those are the consequences. And they always have been. You can accept those consequences or you can make room for the way the world has evolved, but those are your options; time waits for nobody.
Take a step back and look at how patronizing your language is. Comparing people to children. Implying they're delusional. Insisting you've got it right and refusing to budge. Doesn't that sound like the way older people have always patronized younger people? Don't you remember being younger and people talking that way about your generation?
> You don't have to like people to respect them. You don't have to agree with them either.
This is where conversations about pronouns or gender always go off the tracks… If I don’t agree with someone’s concept of gender, you’re saying I don’t respect them. How do you respectfully disagree with and not use someone’s preferred pronouns? You can disagree, but not out loud?
I think you need to double check your assumptions. This isn’t a younger generation vs older generation issue. It’s mostly US (w/ Canada) and mostly a side note in politics.
"I call people mister or asshole" is absolutely about respect. "I'm not going to change my habits of 50 years" is absolutely a generational thing.
How do you respect someone you disagree with? You find a way to live and let live. I'm not going to be more specific, because thinking through how that would work and coming to a decision is part of the process.
And to be clear, it goes both ways. Eg, if you look at my comments in this thread, you'll find my language is respectful if firm and that I don't make insults. That's not because of a lack of frustration. It's because I refuse to respond if my response would be disrespectful.
The way it was explained to me is more complicated.
It’s about hierarchy. The higher you are in the imagined hierarchy, the more things don’t apply to you.
The president is at the top, so he can do anything.
The WASP housewife is in the middle, so she can get an abortion because her case is special.
The minority commits all crimes and is killing babies.
So, it’s not contradictory in their mind, they literally think they’re better, and it’s why there’s value in having people lower than them in their mental system.
So I'm going to be that guy. It wasn't until Nixon and his southern strategy that the modern Republican Party became the Party we know today. The coalitions that formed the political parties before then were based more on tradition and geography than on ideology. The Republican Party has been moving ever more rightward (and pulling the Democratic Party along with it) since Reagan. America doesn't even have a Center-Left party anymore as result of this.
It's hilarious how many born-and-bred blue staters I know actually fall for this. As someone who grew up around the GOP base: I've met literally zero who had actual commitment to personal liberties.
“This idea that science cannot continue until there’s a political lens over it is unprecedented,” said Anne Schuchat, a former principal deputy director at the CDC. “I hope it’s going to be very short-lived, but if it’s not short-lived, it’s censorship.”
What's going on with all the censorship, next we will now is people thrown to jail for their ideas.
This is not by itself a defense, but you're speaking relatively ("more and more"), so the obvious thing to point out is that things have gotten more and more extreme within the political right in the US over that time frame, and more quickly as time goes on. More extreme means more likely to break the "worth posting even though it has political content" barrier, wherever that bar is for each submitter.
Tech companies decided to throw out any pretense of being neutral and go all in with the current administration. In turn, the current administration is trampling on peoples rights and causing downstream effects.
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